In 2013, Michael Turner saved the life of a 16-year-old girl who had been viciously attacked and stabbed in a Target store in Pennsylvania. And instead of thanking him for protecting its customers and preventing them from being murdered, Target is now suing him for his heroism and alleging he acted irresponsibly.
The attacker, Leon Walls, was convicted of attempted homicide for stabbing then-16-year-old Allison Meadows in 2013.
Security footage from the store shows Walls grabbing Meadows and stabbing her before Turner tackles the knife-wielding perp and chases him out of the store with a baseball bat.
Meadows and her family vehemently disagree with Target’s legal assault on Turner, calling Turner’s actions heroic and crediting them with preventing Meadows’ murder. The Meadows family has sued the store, claiming that the retail company had inadequate security, and alleging that the store, by suing Turner, is just trying to blame someone else for Target’s own refusal to protect the safety and security of its customers.
“Suing Michael Turner is just Target’s way of trying to blame someone else for what happened under their own roof,” an attorney for the Meadows family said, “The family certainly doesn’t blame Mr. Turner and they are thankful he was there that day.”
Target, however, is no stranger to charges that it puts parochial corporate politics ahead of its customers’ safety.
Target has come under fire(to be criticized (often + from )) recently after announcing that all retail locations would allow customers to use whatever restroom they want regardless of their biological sex. As a result, women may suddenly find themselves sharing a bathroom with grown men. Many women’s rights activists believe Target’s new policy needlessly puts vulnerable women at risk of sexual assault and deprives them of their right to safety and privacy.
Target’s policy has raised questions nationwide about whether men who merely claim to be women should be allowed in the same bathroom as women. On Monday, a female security officer at a Giant supermarket in Washington, D.C., was arrested after telling a man to leave the women’s restroom in the store. In Toronto, a serial sexual predator pretended to be a transgender woman named Jessica in order to prey on women at a battered women’s shelter.
Trial proceedings over Target’s lawsuit against the man who rescued a 16-year-old girl from being stabbed to death will begin Monday. Meadows and her family will attend the court proceedings, ABC News Channel 9 reports.
